Cell tower proposal draws ire of residents

Saturday

Jul 1, 2017 at 4:48 PM

By Joanne Senders / reading@wickedlocal.com

Neighbors in the Beacon and Auburn Street neighborhood let the Board of Selectmen know at their Tuesday, June 27 meeting that they are very concerned about a proposed cell tower to be erected next to the water tower in the neighborhood.

The water tower is in need of replacement and that project will require the cell carrier equipment currently located on the tower to be moved. According to Town Engineer Ryan Percival, the benefits of removing the cell equipment are numerous.

“There’s a lot of issues,” Percival said, citing the problems with maintaining a tank with equipment on it and the need to have town personnel accompany carriers who want access to their equipment because of Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) regulations.

He also cited the tank being currently overloaded, the catwalk being in violation of OSHA regulations, and the dissimilar metals of the tank and cell equipment causing corrosion. Percival said the change would improve cell coverage in the town as well as public safety radio.

However, Mike Lacey of Beacon Street had serious concerns with safety.

“I’m opposed to this all inclusively, not only as an eye sore but what’s the health risk?” he said.

“There is no new risk,” said Chair John Arena, explaining that since the carriers were already on the tank and they would just be relocated and they would actually be further away from residents as they would be higher up.

Lacey pointed out that with the new structure there could potentially be more or stronger equipment added.

Arena told the other board members that people are going to have safety concerns as the discussions go forward and suggested the town may need to hire a consultant who could explain things in layman’s terms.

Mark Delaney of Beacon Street was upset that the notice they received about the evening’s meeting was the first the neighbors were hearing about the tower.

“I’m really disappointed this is the first notice I’ve gotten,” he said. “They’re talking a 160 foot tower next to a 110 foot tank. The decisions already been made… this is not a fair process to this point.”

Delaney said from what he has researched the tower will look like “the Eiffel Tower.”

The board assured Delaney that the project was not a done deal and that money has not even been budgeted for the project.

Selectman Barry Berman said, “The last thing we want to do is to shove a project down a neighborhood’s throat.”

Delaney also told the board he thought towers might soon be obsolete since he believes carriers are moving to installing small sites on telephone poles instead of cell towers.

Paul Bergman, a consultant that the town has hired to assist with the cell tower project told the meeting that the micro sites Delaney was referring to, are mainly used in urban areas where towers are not feasible and that carriers are using a combination for their networks. He said that Bedford was installing a tower that very day and all the carriers were going to locate their equipment on it.

“It’s been our experience the networks are going to be a marriage and combination of these micro sites and towers,” he said.

Other solutions were discussed at the meeting, such as attaching the equipment on the new tower in such a way it doesn’t interfere with maintenance or finding a different location, although no one could think of a suitable location at the time.

“There may be another way to solve this problem,” Arena said.

Engineering will continue to study the issue and there will be further meetings with neighbors.